Exodus 38 Footnotes

38:24-25 It seems surprising that slaves in Egypt would have possessed the 2,193 pounds of gold and 7,544 pounds of silver needed for the construction of the tabernacle and its furnishings. However, the Bible suggests that the Israelites’ wealth came from the Egyptians, residents of the richest nation in the world at that time, and was gained in obedience to God’s command (3:22; 12:35).

No individual Israelite would have had to obtain a large quantity of gold and silver from the Egyptians. Each of the more than six hundred thousand adult males was asked to give only two-fifths of an ounce of silver to supply the amount needed for the tabernacle (v. 26). The gift of each of the adult male members of the community would have averaged less than one-seventeenth of an ounce of gold. Such limited quantities could have reasonably been obtained from ancient Egypt.